A rather mediocre and dull cartoon featuring dancing dwarfs. The beginning piece of music, Verdi's Anvil Chorus, was catchy and a treat to listen to. But, the rest of the music as follows was just average. Not an entertaining cartoon at all. Grade D

This is an early Silly Symphony done by Disney. There will be spoilers ahead:There isn't much to this one. While the music is good and some of the animation is nice, it's essentially dwarfs dancing, drinking and pulling on beards. The first minute or so shows the dwarfs in various forms of work and then they start rolling out large kegs marked "BEER".After that, it's basically some drunk dwarfs dancing, with the focus narrowing to two dwarfs dancing around. One of them winds up wearing a leaf like a tutu and prancing about like a ballerina.The two eventually fall into a keg, emerging as even more tipsy than before. The last part of the short becomes rather odd and a bit surreal as everything becomes wavy and unsettled. That's all there really is to this one, I'm afraid. They can't all be gems.This short is available on the Disney Treasures More Silly Symphonies DVD release and the set is well worth tracking down.

Out of the ten or so "Silly Symphonies" I've seen to date, 'The Merry Dwarfs (1929)' seems to be the weakest of all of them. Though 'The Skeleton Dance (1929)' and 'Springtime (1929)' were enjoyable, despite just portraying characters dancing in time with classical music, this particular cartoon seems to be lacking something. Surprisingly, there's very little charm in watching those little bearded fellows tap-dance across the grass, and, unlike the more nature-orientated Symphonies, we're stuck with the same performers throughout the six minutes. The most notable element of this cartoon is the unmistakable blueprint for Disney's first feature-length film 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937),' though, in the intervening eight years, you can certainly recognise how efficiently the studio managed to evolve its craft.This particular short was directed by Walt Disney himself, and contains no dialogue, only dancing set to pleasant classical music. At the end, Disney does have some fun with the dwarfs' inherent drunkenness, and the entire screen warps as they consume more alcohol than is healthy for them. They dance inside barrels, they dance inside hats, they dance on their hands, they dance of their beards; these dwarfs are enjoying such an agreeable morning that they're quite willing to dance any old way. It's just a shame that watching them dance isn't quite so exciting. 'The Merry Dwarfs' is ultimately a worthwhile early cartoon for fans of the Silly Symphonies, but there are many that can be considered a major improvement upon this effort. Just for the record, my favourite to date is Wilfred Jackson's 'The Old Mill (1937).'

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.It is a lovely day and THE MERRY DWARFS are frolicking in their woodland home, playing with the tiny insects & getting very drunk, indeed...There's no plot in this very early series entry; basically it's pleasant action/reaction animation. A comparison of the little fellows in this cartoon with Snow White's 7 companions eight years later reveals just how greatly Disney's artists improved during that time.The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.